Species textThis species was first recorded in Britain near Torquay in 1879! However it was not described from Britain until 1993, when it was known to have occurred since at least 1986 and 1989 as flourishing populations in Portsmouth (Hampshire) and Swanage (Dorset), with a population in Essex at Westcliff-on-Sea recorded in 1990, and other records from Littlehampton in West Sussex.and Worthing, where a young woman was recorded as being bitten by a female (Snazell & Jones, 1993 - Bulletin of the the British Arachnological Society Vol. 9 (5): 164-167).There is now evidence of its distribution spreading more widely, with confirmed records from Cornwall, South Devon, East Sussex, Kent, Surrey and Warwick. References